Starting tomorrow, Oakland International Airport in California is offering three days of free parking for travelers who fly to any Texas city, the San Jose Mercury News reported yesterday. That airport is an alternative destination to the larger San Francisco Airport.

Hmmm, think it has anything to do with Southwest Airlines’ new flights to Oakland?

Last week, Dallas-based Southwest added a daily, nonstop, round-trip flight between Dallas Love Field and Oakland. It was part of a 30 percent expansion of flights by the airline at Love Field that began in October when federal flying restrictions expired there.

The Oakland airport’s free parking offer also is probably in response to an effort to attract more parking business since the Bay Area Rapid Transit’s Oakland Airport Connector began service on Nov. 22. The train service replaced a shuttle bus on the 3.2-mile stretch between the airport and the Coliseum/Oakland Airport train station. (I rode the Oakland Airport Connector in early December, and it was a very easy connection and commute to San Francisco.)

Although Oakland airport’s three free days of parking is not just good for flights to Love Field but also to Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport. American Airlines, Delta Air Lines and Spirit Airlines fly between the D/FW Airport and Oakland.

Texas-bound travelers can save $22 a day at the Oakland airport’s daily parking lot by presenting their e-ticket or e-receipt with a Park Free coupon downloaded from the Oakland airport website’s parking page.

A Delta Air Lines jet takes off from Ronald Reagan National Airport in the Washington, D.C., area. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

Delta Air Lines reaches a deal with United Airlines that lets it continue flying from Dallas Love Field for six months.

Delta initially had a deal to stay at the city-owned airport until Jan. 6, but we’ve reported the carrier has kept flying beyond that deadline. The Dallas City Council and city attorneys yesterday met behind closed doors to discuss “legal issues related to gate accommodations” requested by Delta at Love Field, according to the council’s executive-session agenda.

The new deal gives Delta the right to use one of United’s two gates at Love Field for 180 days. It’s unclear what will happen after that.

It looks like the first full month of the end of flying restrictions at Dallas Love Field may have hurt the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport a little bit.

Passenger traffic at D/FW Airport in November rose 1 percent — the smallest monthly gain of 2014, the airport reported today. (See chart below.) That month, 4,764,386 passengers got on and off planes there, compared with 4,715,487 a year earlier.

In October, passenger traffic at D/FW Airport was up 2.1 percent in October, despite the expansion of competing service at nearby Love Field for half of that month. While the airport still showed growth, the year-over-year change was the smallest since February.

We’ve been closely tracking these numbers since federal restrictions on Love Field flights ended Oct. 13. The expiration of the Wright amendment means airlines now can fly nonstop anywhere in the United States from Love Field, rather than just to airports in Texas and eight other states before Oct. 13.

Since Oct. 13 at Love Field, Southwest Airlines has increased flying by nearly 30 percent, Virgin America moved its operations there from the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport with 13 daily flights and Delta Air Lines began flying larger planes on five daily trips to Atlanta.

Some of D/FW Airport’s passenger decline — and Love Field’s gain — in November almost certainly was due to Virgin America. Still, the airline accounted for less than 1 percent of market share in 2014 at D/FW Airport.

Virgin America carried zero passengers at D/FW Airport in November vs. 30,576 people a year earlier. Its October passenger traffic at the airport also declined — to 12,858 people, from 35,716 a year earlier.

The question is how much of an impact with the end of flying restrictions at Love Field have on D/FW Airport long term. Time will tell.

For the first 11 months of 2014, passenger traffic at the airport was up 4.8 percent to 58,289,563 people.

Airline passenger traffic at D/FW Airport for the first 11 months of 2014

It’s Jan. 6 today, the day Delta Air Lines was supposed to stop flying out of Dallas Love Field under an agreement with city officials.

Well, Delta is still flying at Love — and its unclear for how much longer that will last as the carrier and city officials continue to try to find a long-term solution to the fight about gate use at the city-owned airport. The Dallas City Council is scheduled to discuss the issue tomorrow in a closed-door, executive session meeting.

American would fly Boeing 777-200 jets on its proposed Los Angeles-Tokyo route. All of American's 777-200s are being retrofitting to refresh the cabins and enhance the travel experience. (Courtesy of American Airlines Group Inc.)

American Airlines today filed an application with the U.S. Department of Transportation to operate daily, year-round nonstop flights between Los Angeles International Airport and Tokyo’s Haneda Airport using slots operated by Delta Air Lines from Seattle.

This is the second such request by American. In October, the Fort Worth-based airline asked the DOT to let it fly the same route using rights held by Delta from Seattle, claiming Delta only flew on a seasonal basis and general under-use of its rights.

In its Oct. 2 initial DOT filing, American claimed Delta was “essentially deserting Seattle” from October through March with only a handful of flights scheduled on its Seattle-Haneda route.

American’s new request is in response to a DOT decision Dec. 15 to re-examine the use of Tokyo slots. Hawaiian Airlines also submitted an application to the DOT today, proposing daily, nonstop service between Kona, Hawaii, and Haneda.

Under a U.S.-Japan bilateral agreement, U.S. airlines can operate a total of four daily round-trip flights at Haneda. That service is now provided by: Delta from Los Angeles and Seattle; Hawaiian Airlines from Honolulu; and United Airlines from San Francisco.

With such limited U.S. airline service, “it is imperative that American be allowed to compete,” American president Scott Kirby said in a statement. “We are the only U.S. global network carrier without the authority to operate our own aircraft at Haneda.”

Kirby also said American’s proposed service would increase competition in the Haneda market and make the most of the underutilized operating rights.

Los Angeles is the largest continental U.S. gateway to Tokyo and demand in the Los Angeles-Tokyo market is almost five times greater than Seattle-Tokyo, American said. The airline already flies nearly 200 daily departures from Los Angeles.

The unions representing American’s 25,000 flight attendants and about 15,000 pilots support the airline’s proposal for the Los Angeles-Tokyo route. American would fly Boeing 777-200 jets, which are undergoing retrofitting to refresh the cabins and enhance the travel experience, on the proposed route.

American is encouraging customers and employees to show their support of its proposed Los Angeles-Tokyo service by contacting the DOT via a special web page.

New Dallas Love Field statistics show just what the end of 34-year-old flying restrictions there has meant.

Passenger airline traffic soared nearly 37 percent at the city airport in November — the first full month of expanded flights after flying restrictions ended there — from a year earlier, according to data released today. Love Field also saw a nearly 10 percent increase in traffic in October, when some airlines had only been flying some extra flights for half of the month.

The expiration of the Wright amendment on Oct. 13 let Southwest Airlines and other carriers fly nonstop to any U.S. state or U.S. territory.

The Wright amendment, which became federal law in 1980 to protect Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, initially allowed short flights from Love Field to other Texas cities and adjacent states. A 2006 revision let Love Field carriers fly to other U.S. airports after making a stop in Wright amendment cities.

Since Oct. 13 at Love Field, Southwest Airlines has increased flying by nearly 30 percent, Virgin America moved its operations there from the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport with 13 daily flights and Delta Air Lines began flying larger planes on five daily trips to Atlanta.

Tomorrow, Southwest will add four daily flights from Love Field to San Francisco and Oakland, Calif., completing – at least for now – its expansion there. (Read more about that in the newspaper and at www.dallasnews.com tomorrow.)

Those new flights mean Dallas-based Southwest will have increased its Love Field flying by about 30 percent since Oct. 13 — from 118 daily departures to 153 to 33 cities.

Southwest’s passenger traffic increased by 6 percent and its load factor — how full planes fly — rose 1.5 points in November, the latest data available for airlines.

Virgin America’s passenger traffic increased by 2.8 percent and its load factor was up 2.3 points in November.

The neighborhood name South of Love or SoLo is the brainchild of Walt Bialas, research director for the Jones Lang LaSalle real estate firm in Dallas.

My colleague Steve Brown today wrote about the burgeoning interest in real estate redevelopment around Love Field now thatthe airport, which is home to Southwest Airlines, has been renovated and flying is expanding.

Delta had hoped to use one of these empty gates at Dallas Love Field. (Vernon Bryant/The Dallas Morning News)

On Monday, the city of Dallas told Delta Air Lines it will no longer be able to fly out of Love Field as of Oct. 13. The Atlanta-based airline has been flying from the city-owned airport since 2008.

On Tuesday, we found out why: United Airlines says it will expand service from Love Field to Houston in January and it will let Dallas-based Southwest Airlines use one of its two gates at Love Field. Dallas’ aviation director Mark Duebner said there was no room for Delta to continue — and increase — flying.

Today, my colleague Robert Wilonsky wrote more that Duebner’s statement apparently conflicts with documents the city filed in 2009 with the Federal Aviation Administration.

Director of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Dr. Tom Frieden speaks during a news conference after confirming that a patient at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital has tested positive for Ebola, the first case of the disease to be diagnosed in the United States, announced Tuesday, Sept. 30, 2014, in Atlanta. The person, an adult who was not publicly identified, developed symptoms days after returning to Texas from Liberia and showed no symptoms on the plane, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (AP Photo/John Bazemore)

A national public health official today said there was “zero risk of transmission” of Ebola on a commercial airline flight that a Dallas patient who has tested positive for the disease flew on from Liberia earlier this month.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Tom Frieden said today in a live briefing from Atlanta that the person — a male who remained unnamed — showed no symptoms before boarding the plane and was not contagious. The CDC doesn’t “believe there is any risk to anyone who was on the flight at that time,” he said.

The patient is the first confirmed case of Ebola diagnosed in the United States.

The patient arrived in the United States on Sept. 20 to visit family, Frieden said. He developed symptoms on Sept. 24 and went to Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital of Dallas’ emergency room two days later, but was sent home. He was admitted to the hospital on Sept. 28 and placed in isolation and tested for Ebola.

The CDC has not shared specific patient information that would allow us to confirm whether the traveler’s itinerary involved United. The CDC emphasized that the traveler was not symptomatic, could not have been contagious during the travel, and that there is “zero risk” to anyone who may have been on the flight.

The name of the commercial airline has not been disclosed.

“American Airlines does not fly to Africa and we have been told the passenger was not on a connecting flight involving our aircraft,” said spokeswoman Andrea Huguely, a spokeswoman for the Fort Worth-based carrier.

A spokesman for Dallas-based Southwest Airlines, which does not fly internationally, said the CDC has not contacted it and has “no information about Southwest being involved in any way.”

“The CDC has not shared specific patient information that would allow us to confirm whether the traveler’s itinerary involved United,” United Airlines spokeswoman Christen David said.

The CDC has posted “Ebola Guidance for Airlines” on its website for airline crews and cleaning and cargo personnel. It includes guidelines about general infection control precautions, stopping ill travelers from boarding aircraft and what do do if you think you’ve been exposed.

A Dallas city official today told Delta Air Lines that it can no longer fly from Dallas Love Field as of Oct. 13 — the same day the Wright Amendment expires at the city-owned airport and other airlines will expand their flying.

The full story by my colleague Robert Wilonsky is on The Dallas Morning News‘ City Hall blog.